22 year old and afraid I might have prostate cancer? All sorts of weird symptoms
Posted , 5 users are following.
Hi everyone!
I'm 22 years old and have always had a fear of going to the doctor, mainly because I am afraid of getting bad results. I know that is bad and I really need to get over my fear, but It's very hard as the longer I wait, the more paranoid I become of what the results might be. I have been paranoid about this since I was about 15 years old, and as an embarrassed teenager I was too scared, embarrassed and paranoid to go see a doctor. Now it's just been so long that I dread going to a doctor because I know that I should have gone so long ago, and now it just sounds awful explaining that I've been putting it off for around 7-8 years.
Around 2010, when I was ~14-15 years old, when I was reaching the highest stages of puberty and as my penis grew, my foreskin got pushed back behind the head of my penis, and didn't grow enough, so ever since then my penis has looked as if it is circumcised, which it however is not (having the head outside of the foreskin hurt a lot the first days, but I got used to it pretty quickly and now around 8 years later I can barely feel it). Around the same time I started feeling burn when I urinated. After it had went on for a while it had gotten really bad to the point where I wanted to scream while urinating. My mother told me it was probably just a UTI and it would get better in a few days, and it did. (I should note that I was a virgin back then and for a few more years so I don't think an STD would have been possible). I would also feel the need to urinate more often than usual, urinating small amounts at a time, and bits of leaking after urinating. In addition to this, somewhere around the same period the stream of my urine split in two, so I have one powerful stream and another one slightly below it that has some power at first, but just starts dripping after a while. My stream has been like that ever since.
The UTI symptoms (pain, frequent, leaking, feeling of having not emptied completely) have ever since then gone and popped up for around a few days a month where I panic a bit, but always stop after a few days and I forget about it again. Though I think the slight leaking for a short time after urination might be chronic when I come to think of it. Additionally the pain and leaking is not only during urination but there is also some leaking before ejaculation, sometimes a bit of pain while ejaculating, and some leaking after ejaculation as well.
I always thought it was just a UTI that would go away and I've been taking cranberry supplements for some months now, but it still pops up every now and then. Throughout my life I've worn shorts a lot (and I'm from Iceland where it's pretty cold) and since my foreskin doesn't cover my head and I read somewhere that circumcised men have a greater chance of getting a UTI, so I just somehow brushed it off as UTI. But isn't it weird that it keeps popping up time and time again? The symptoms get worse if I hold my urine for some time.
Well today I as a coincidence read an article on prostate cancer and many of the symptoms seemed to fit. The UTI symptoms especially, but I think it's odd that they go away and then come back after a while. I also read that in developed cases patients can experience unexplained nausea and low appetite. Well, for the past few years I've had a very low appetite, and can go a whole day without eating, and instead of getting that "wow I feel hungry, I should eat!" I usually just feel powerless and even tend to forget that I'm hungry as I'm absorbed in doing something else. In addition to this, over the past 2 years or so, I can hardly exercise at all without feeling extremely nauseous. I can lift, but as soon as I start doing things that require more constant motion I get very nauseous really quickly, and have to stop, regardless of how much sleep I've gotten or my nutrition for the past few days/hours. I thought I might have low blood sugar or something as this has never really been a problem for me until around the time I stopped eating candy (I ate a lot of candy every day), so I connected it with that and thought that maybe it was just because I didn't really take up eating anything that provided me with the sugar I used to get instead.
In addition to this, yesterday I noticed a small amount of blood in my feces, but that's something that I have only observed a few times in my life and is not a regular occurrence. Additionally after reading up on prostate cancer I started touching the area between my ass and testicles, and felt as if there was a hard lump or something close to the a**hole when I pressed in a bit, but I've never really touched that area before so I don't know if that's normal.
I am panicking a bit now and would really appreciate any feedback. It's sunday so I can't go to a doctor now, and so I've been sitting paranoid at home feeling bad and thinking the worst.
Thank you
0 likes, 4 replies
Pepasan ParanoidBMan
Posted
You have said a lot about various aspects of your health, so I'm not sure what to respond to. However, the best advice I can think of is that you copy and paste what you've written here and write a letter to your doctor. Hopefully he or she will give you a general check-up with any necessary tests and referrals to any specialists s/he thinks necessary.
I very much doubt you have cancer of the prostate at your age. However, the blood in faeces is what would worry me most if it were me.
mosski ParanoidBMan
Posted
Pepasan's reply is excellent advice. You're obviously worried and scared. While it was brave of you to speak so openly of your symptoms on this forum it is a doctor wigh whom toushould be speaking.
I agree that it is HIGHLY UNLIKELY that you have prostste cancer there may be something else that requires treatment. See a doctor and share all of what you have shared with us with him. Whether it is something minor or something else you can move forward with knowledge and treatment (if necessary) instead of fear and soon put these last 7-8 years of worry behind you. Won't that feel good!
textnician ParanoidBMan
Posted
I seems highly unlikely that it is prostate cancer at your age.
I too was an embarrassed teenager, finding all sorts of reasons not to go to the doctor for anything that might involve dangly bits (or indeed for anything else) . This teenage phobia lasted until I was 70, when I had to see a doc because waterworks problem was getting a bit extreme. It was only then that I had no option but to reveal myself in my full glory (microscope out, lads!). It turned out to be something of a non-event. Docs are looking at dangly bits all the time and I wondered afterwards - and since, during various procedures - why I was making such a fuss about it for all those years.
I know it's easy to say - though bear in mind that I've also been through that reluctance all these years - but just get yourself to the doc now. I'm surely no medic, but it sounds like a simple mechanical problem that maybe needs a bit of minor surgery. Even on the offchance that it's more than that, get ye to the doc now.
As to whether circumcision makes one more liable to UTIs, well I've not noticed any such tendency. I seem to recall reading ages ago that circumcision reduces the chance of penile cancer. If that is true then an extra UTI or two from time to time seems a good trade-off.
rolf61809 ParanoidBMan
Posted
For god sakes see a urologist don't wait any longer. Even if it's bad news of some sort the sooner you're catch it the better your chances of complete recovery. The blood in your stool most likely is from a hemorrhoid but I'm no doctor. That might also account for the lump you are feeling. And if you aren't satisfied with the first urologist you see don't waste any time and find another one. They should do a cat-scan that includes not only your pelvis but up to the kidneys also. And you should be tested for chlamydia and all other STDs, as well as Lyme's disease. Even if they don't find anything initially it will give you greater peace of mind to eliminate some of the possibilities.